Sew a Simple Chic Crossbody Purse

The New Year is here and it’s the perfect time to wipe the slate clean and make some new resolutions. This year my thought is simple. I want to spend more time at my sewing machine. Maybe use up some those fabrics that I keep hoarding in my cupboard and make some pretty quilts. I want to explore the quilting world more, and a perfect way I think is to commit to make a block each month. This way, by the end of the year I should have 12 blocks done, and ready for finishing. And just one block a month doesn’t seem like such a daunting task, it feels totally doable. Not too scary.

So this is my new years resolution for 2012: One new block every month.

For this month’s block, my first block, I chose a herringbone pattern. Chevrons are all the rage in the design industry right now, and this block is my take on the chevrons. I chose different widths of fabric for the stripes in my block, but you could easily make the stripes even and make this block quicker!

This is also an easy block that will use up a lot of your scraps. To begin with, I cut my fabric scraps to measure 15 inches long, and of widths 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.25 inches (plus your seam allowances)

I then laid the fabrics and moved them around till I found an arrangement I liked. I then sewed two to three of the stripes together. I pressed out the seams and then cut each of these in the middle, thus creating two mirror imaged blocks, each measuring 7 inches.

To achieve the “V” design in the chevrons, I then staggered these blocks by 1 inch each. You need stagger these blocks to the right on one side and the left for the other half.

I now sewed these staggered blocks together. Now I needed to trim my block on an angle. I chose the 30-degree angle mark on the self-healing mat as my guide.

Making sure that my block aligned exactly to the corner of the grid, I used a Rotary cutter to cut along the 30-degree line. I did the same to the mirrored half too.

I matched the seams and pinned them together, just to make sure that all the “V” points look good. I then sewed them together to achieve this block.

I then trimmed the block to measure 7.5 by 8.5 inches. And added a border all around.

This was how I had envisioned the block and I was happy with the end result. Though I do think the block looks prettier on its side, and I think that is how I am going to use it!